


Three Men and a Baby

by iluvaqt



Category: 24 (TV), Opposite Sex (TV 2000)
Genre: Baby, Chris is Cary, Exes, F/M, Family Drama, If you squint you’ll see them, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week, Life Threatening Illness, One Night Stand, Siblings, Tragedy/Comedy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Yvonne is Kate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26083195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: Their lives went in very different directions after they graduated Evergreen High. Kate went to Oxford and studied English Literature and Political Science. Top of her graduating class, she was recruited to the CIA. The next few years she worked at several foreign posts as an analyst before moving to operations.It would be more than 10 years before she would see Cary again. Disillusioned with her life, a young widow and recovering from trauma, pretending to be normal for one night seemed like a welcome reprieve from the path she chose.A passionate tyrst in the back of a vintage rental leaves them with more than lingering memories, the results of which arrive unexpectedly on Cary's doorstep.::: :::Set shortly after the events of 24, Season 9. After learning of Adam’s death and failing to protect Audrey, Kate leaves CIA London’s office and returns to New York.





	1. Life Changes

Just over fourteen months. That was the last time he'd seen her. If anyone knew he'd been keeping track almost down to the day, they'd probably suggest therapy. He had hoped to track her down or at least call her - he would have if she'd left him with a number - but between his big brother returning home a shattered mess and his own employment to worry about, he couldn't go looking. _Stalking, you mean,_ his mind treacherously supplied. Okay stalking. The need to see her burned inside him like a flame that wouldn't dim no matter how he'd tried to quell it.

He'd tried talking to Jed about her, not that their old classmate had been much help. He'd not had much contact with Kate since graduation and before that they'd never reconciled their friendship to what it had been before Jed had tried dating two girls at the same time. Kate had forgiven him but never trusted him the same, or let herself get too close to him again.

Back in school Cary hadn't been all that concerned with Jed's plight of having two girls mad at him. The solitary Kate, distancing herself from Jed had allowed Cary to get to know Kate a little better himself. Acting the sensitive guy, the quiet supportive listener that the girls had all seemed to appreciate had not only earned Stella's notice but Kate had eventually warmed to him too. Instead of continuing to pigeonhole him as the dumb jock, the girls had started to seek him out. Shutting up instead of trying to be a smooth talker, playing bag carrier and actually paying attention when girls opened up around him had given him some neat insight into what they were into and how they interacted. What an education he got.

No, they didn't talk about boys all day long, even the pretty girls had hang ups and he'd learned that yes, while Kate was undisputedly the biggest bookworm in the school, she also had really great taste in music and she had introduced him to one of the coolest hang out spots in town. A coffee house that invited open mic performance to just about anything from poetry, instrumentals to stand up comedy. In their senior year, he'd seen her there a lot even if they only spoke occasionally. He'd been dating Stella openly by then but she had still been no less possessive of his time. Kate had a really pretty singing voice, that settled somewhere between old blues vibe and the sultry tones of Marilyn Monroe. He could almost hear her voice perfectly as he thought back to those memories.

It was a small, almost unacknowledged thing but he had always had this curious inexplicable pull toward her. She presented as a studious, bordering on obsessive, goal-orientated, introverted and standoffish type of girl. Smart and focused but not as polished or confident in her own skin like Stella had been. Kate wasn't afraid to speak her mind though, as he'd had the occasion to witness more than once when she felt slighted or perceived an injustice. Watching her felt waiting for a budding rose that stubbornly refused to bloom. Each layer hinted at a hidden beauty, a rich hue and a fresh intoxicating scent just waiting to burst free. Graduation had come all to quickly and then she'd just up and disappeared. He'd heard she'd applied to several universities, even two overseas, Cambridge and Oxford. All he knew for certain is that she had wanted to major in English literature.

After a long day surrounded by hormonal teenagers with the attention span of lab mice, he had barely enough energy to slip off his tie and wolf down whatever leftovers he could nuke for dinner. The quiet of his room with the city lights casting shadows off the walls would remind him of that vintage backseat. His skin would prickle with the memory of her fingers against his neck, her nails biting into the muscles of his shoulders as she panted and moaned her pleasure in his arms. He would be hard in seconds and too tired to roll himself out of bed to take a cold shower to kill the throbbing ache, he'd push his hand into his gray boxer briefs and jerk away the need. His fist was a poor substitute for her slick tight warmth but in his mind, his memory recreated the exquisite sensation of her enveloping him, holding his dick and drawing him into her body, rhythmically stroking and clutching in a deliciously torturous pattern till he couldn't hold back anymore and he had spent, balls deep inside her.

He shucked his underwear down his legs and wiped himself off using the fabric, before toss the article of clothing into a corner. Sated but no less mentally fatigued, he fell back and crawled beneath the covers to sleep. The pile of marking could wait till the morning. If he skipped the staff meeting he could review his students' work before his first period.

A incessant buzzing woke him and he wondered how he could have slept past his alarm when he noticed how bright the sun was beaming through his open window. Half buried by his duvet, he threw it back to cast an eye at his clock. It wasn't even 7 A.M. yet. His clock didn't beep till 7.30 A.M. and since the drive in only took 10 minutes he unusually didn't leave until the kitchen clock ticked over 8. The buzz of the doorbell kept going like a bug zapper that lured another unsuspecting victim into its death trap.

Was someone going to get the damn door? Between his inhuman energized, morning person, workout-freak-of-a-brother whom was also currently jobless, and homeless or his bar owner best friend who normally strolled in as he was just stepping out of the shower, he assumed someone would have answered the door already.

Last night, he'd had parent teacher meetings till 9 P.M. and after navigating the traffic due the night road works to get home, he hadn't got in until 10. Nick had kept him up three nights in a row before that well past midnight till Cary had to beg off pleading work in the morning, leaving his older brother brother to his uncharacteristic melancholy nursing an Irish coffee and vacantly staring at English football on mute. It didn't matter how late he went to bed, if he even saw a bed, he'd be up with the sunrise, drinking his green muck for breakfast before he went out for a 25-mile bike ride. All this before Cary could even tap snooze on his phone alarm.

Nick had moved back from Vancouver a month ago. Cary had only recently convinced him to keep what savings he had left, and move in until he got back on his feet. His wife, Penny, had been cheating on him with their accountant, and they had also been screwing with his returns so that he'd also been hit with obscene charges for tax fraud. Being a property lawyer, Nick had connections and he'd managed to avoid any jail time but his now ex-wife had managed to pin everything on the accountant and being married for ten years had cleaned him out financially through a divorce settlement and alimony. 

Nick had been such a wreck that he hadn't even had the presence of mind to put an investigator on her to prove her infidelity, fraud and manipulations to turn the divorce in his favor. Penny had been his high school sweetheart, had followed his brother first to Harvard and later to Canada when he'd got offered a junior position with a big property developer in Vancouver right out of college. He'd never seen her for the selfish opportunist she was. And Cary being the much younger brother, hadn't noticed. Nick had been half way through law school when the family had decided to move from Wilmington to Evergreen, North Carolina. His father had been offered the City Manager position in the neighboring county after working as the projects manager for the Assistant Mayor's office for ten years. It was a substantial pay rise and a career advancement so his parents made the move. Granted it could have been only a two-hour trip by car, but his Dad hated a long commute so they moved, and Cary got to enroll in a recently re-voted, previously, all girls school. Every teenage boys dream. It hadn't been the cruise-ride he had initially thought but it had been far from bad either. Besides, it had led to Kate.

The buzzing had mercifully stopped, but now awake he decided he might as well get started for the day. He pulled on a pair of shorts and scrubbed a hand over his face. Nick had more than likely put the coffee machine on, he'd wake up properly and then go shower.

No sooner had he stepped out of the short corridor that led to the living area and kitchen, did he notice Nick in his riding gear holding a teary-eyed, hiccuping baby while doing a minimal job of calming his irate, harassed, normally reclusive neighbor who looked fit to strangle someone.

Nick gave him a wide-eyed look that pleaded silently for help.

"You," the towering blonde glowered, thrusting her finger in his direction. "Deal with this," she said gesturing at the baby. Then, she unceremoniously kicked a large black travel bag and a high chair through the door, before she stomped back to her apartment on the other side of the void in their building. Slamming the door so violently, it rattled pitifully in the frame behind her.

"Well she's wonderfully cheerful for a morning person."

Cary snorted and crossed the room, wordlessly taking the still mewling, wet-faced baby. She was cute, if you ignored the red-rimmed eyes, the snot and the drool leaking down her chin. What was that smell? He extended his arms, hoping to distance himself and that only made her more distressed.

"You're not supposed to hold them like they're going to explode," Nick quipped, folding his arms in observation.

"I'm pretty sure she just did. How can something so small make a smell so gross?" Cary felt light-headed. The stink was crawling up his nose and into his brain, he could feel brain tissue dying. He was seeing double and the stink was making his eyes well up. What did the kid eat? She didn't look old enough to be eating solids, but then how would he know. He didn't know a thing about babies.

"Did Tia at least tell you why she was dumping a kid on us?" he asked his brother.

Nick shrugged. "She tried to tell me it was mine. I think me laughing in her face didn't help her warm neighborly disposition. Mentioning my ex and my balls probably did help endear her either."

Cary let out a snort, his lips pulled into a smirk. "So that's why she looked fit to deck you. You should watch yourself around her. The maintenance guy tried to get fresh with her once, he ended up with a missing tooth and a dislocated jaw. She might look like the quiet, artsy type, but she's all muscle under those paint spattered coveralls. I've run into her at the gym once or twice. She goes early to avoid the crowds." He watched his brother's eyes glance to the door, a look of thoughtful reflection briefly passing over his face before he turned back to him, nodding at the kid.

"You might want to change her before the whole apartment smells like shit."

"Why do I have to do it?" Cary heard the whine in his voice and only just resisted the urge to scowl. He wasn't four. And his brother shouldn't be able to boss him around in his own place.

"Because genius, the lady's adamant she's yours."

Cary glanced at those big watery eyes and felt his heartbeat pick up and painful tightness stir in his chest. Nick slapped an envelope against his shoulder. It was open. He thrust the baby back at Nick who caught her with effortless grace and held her like he was born to do it. And he probably was, it was one of the sore points, Nick had confessed to putting strain on his marriage. His brother had wanted kids, Penny hadn't. While he watched Nick open the diaper bag, and rummage through it with one hand, the baby propped against his chest supported by the other, Cary turned his attention to the thick paper making an ominous crackling sound in his grip.

Tia said the kid was his. Or had assumed she was Nick's first. The letter had to have more answers. He wasn't surprised it was open. His neighbor had strange habits and ideas. She'd brought him mail opened before, claiming that it had wrongly been put in her box. Why it was open, she offered what seemed like a weak excuse that she hadn't read the address window before tearing into it. He shrugged it off, she seemed lonely at times, if his drama could give her a feeling of escapism or a connection to another human being then it was no big deal to him. Even if her choices to avoid people meant she had limited opportunity to make friends.

He'd never seen her handwriting before but as it dawned on him, whose script he was reading, and what he was reading, he felt all the air in his body leave him in a rush. The paper began to shake and it got difficult to continue reading. He half felt himself fold, his knees buckling, refusing to bear his weight. He was grateful he’d miraculously found his fall cushioned by the sofa. He stared unblinking at the half dressed baby on the coffee table.

"What? Cary?"

He could hear the worry in Nick's voice, it was written all over his face. His brother kept one hand on the baby's belly and snatched the paper from where it rested against his knee under slack fingers.

"Kate?" Nick asked absently in confusion, while his eyes continued to scan over the paper and dart between Cary's face and the baby's. "I don't remember her. Is she the redhead?" he asked with an eyebrow raised in skepticism. No doubt discounting that theory off the bat with the blonde haired child gazing up at him.

"Why are you guys watching chick flicks this early? Nick, come on man, stop torturing herself. You're better than her, don't let her take your manhood, dude. And stop trying to emasculate your brother with your wallowing. He does well enough on his own mooning over that brunette–whoa, who had curry?"

Cary swiveled and looked over the back of the sofa to see Rhys walk into the room blinking blearily, his nose wrinkled in clear offense at the smell, before his eyes rounded at the sight of the baby.

"Who's kid is that?"

Cary reached over and drew her hesitantly, carefully off the table. He pulled her to his lap and looked down at her face and met her big blue-green eyes. Eyes that were much like staring in the mirror. Her nose and lips though. Her little nose and pink tiny lips were a perfect miniature replica of her mother's.

"She's mine."

There was a tremor to his voice as he made the claim, that it wasn't nerves or displeasure but from a breathless uncertainty and irrational doubt that this had to be a dream. It was surreal. It felt like a comical cliche movie plot that his roommate had just accused them of watching. His face while pale as a sheet was pure wonder as he looked at her. They'd made her. That night, the one that was immortalized in his memory, haunted his dreams and often spilled into his waking hours, had given her life. His fingers encompassed her small body and as he drank in her clean, innocent, baby scent with a kiss to her blonde tuffs of hair. He swore then silently with renewed determination that he'd find and bring Kate home, no matter what she pleaded for in her letter. They both wanted and needed her. She belonged with them.


	2. A Moth to the Flame

The moon was full and so low it looked as though it was straddling the horizon. Street lights cast a full golden glow across the parking lot and there were plenty of cars scattered about signalling that while the hour was late there were still a lot of their former classmates joined by dates and significant others that haven’t left the party yet either.

After awkward reintroductions, in costume and with her hair dyed dark, he almost hadn’t recognized her. She was a far cry from the bookish, opinionated and stuck on Jed, Kate he remembered from their senior year.

Greetings and token questions; like what do you do and how are you aside, things had shifted to a steady string of drinks and lounging by the appetisers before it became obvious that someone had heavily spiked the punch bowl early.

She had spilled about her husband being arrested, accused of a serious crime she didn’t think he committed but investigators throwing evidence in her face and even question her own integrity, digging through their lives with a fine toothed comb and mounting pressure from her work and friends, she’d started to suspect maybe she didn’t know him at all. Then he’d died while in custody awaiting trial, and she’d found out later he was wrongly accused. He’d been setup. They’d been married for two years and together for a year before that. She’d confessed depreciatingly that she should have known their relationship was doomed for heartbreak from the beginning considering the more she thought about it, his personality reminded her a lot of Jed; sweet, charming, sociable, charismatic. Kate had dabbed at her smudged mascara, calling herself a mess.

Cary had let the words, “You’re beautiful, I’ve always thought so,” fall out of his mouth before he’d considered whether it was right to make a move on her when she was obviously still processing the loss of her husband. He didn’t think it through, his brain was on autopilot. He’d spent the whole night caught in her gravity. From the moment he spotted her, his heart had started a pounding rhythm in his chest. She’d bloomed into the radiant beauty, confident and alluring that he’d always thought she’d be. And this time there was no Jed, his high school best friend to stand in his way.

The look she had given him, eyes wide, slightly slack jawed, as though the thought that he’d ever looked at her twice, let alone been secretly pining for her was beyond belief, lasted two seconds, before she grabbed his hand and hustled him outside.

Next thing he knew they were in the back of her hired vintage rental and she was kissing and nipping at him like he was the best dessert she’d ever sampled.

His brain not quite addled enough to be at the morally and socially unrestrained level, he pulled back to hold her shoulders and search her eyes. After all he didn’t want her to have any regrets about him. He had enough of those in his past to not want to revisit that kind of behavior in the present. There was also his job to think about.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Kate. And I know you’ve been hurt before, first with Jed and then with what happened to your husband, I need you to know I respect you. I admired your intelligence and your strength of character a lot when we were in school. Are you sure you want to do this, like right here? Right now?”

“Cary, I never thought I’d be the one telling you, that you talk too much. Shut up and kiss me,” she said, grabbing his face and sunk her teeth into his bottom lip.

Damn, she was a good kisser. It was no wonder Jed couldn’t make his mind up about who he’d wanted to be with. Jed had been twisted in knots when everything had spilled out in the open. He’d liked Kate’s mind and the conversations they’d been able to have but he was also a teenage guy, with hormones telling him he wanted to get busy with a girl and Miranda had all but asked Jed to be her first. He’d been ready to ask Kate if they could stay friends when she’d started kissing him and then he’d totally messed up by dating them both at the same time. Their friendship and relationship was over after that.

Before he could fully process what was happening, Kate had his shirt untucked and was racking her nails lightly up and down his back while shamelessly grinding against him. 

Kissing along his jaw, she shrugged her shoulders out of her V-cut dress and he lost any urge and all ability to protest at the sight of the pale, rosy peaked perfection that were her breasts. The blood from his brain instantaneously pooled south of his cummerbund.

He couldn’t keep up with what was happening. The picture she made, her glossy chestnut waves and her smoky framed eyes drinking him in, beckoning him to fall with her was too much for his alcohol infused brain to fight against, let alone to even form a purposeful thoughtful argument that would cool the situation and have them considering things responsibly.

They were in full view of the gymnasium, with decorative lanterns hung on low strings between light posts fully bathing everything in the direct vicinity in a golden glow. Anyone could happen upon them. He looked down at her face and he was lost. Her cheeks an inviting and becoming dusty pink, her lips parted and swollen from their kisses, and her irises were so blown, her light coloured eyes were almost black, full of desire. Longing for him. Something in his chest twinged painfully.

She had always been sweet and unattainable, seemingly perfect Kate. She was kind, intelligent and studious, not in the uptight and snobbish way Stella had been, but the adorable, bookish and your best friend’s girl kind-of-way.

He always thought Jed had been the biggest idiot dating both Miranda and Kate at the same time but as a hormone driven 17-year old, he could understand how the guy had been torn up. They weren’t in school anymore. Those boyhood dibs and hang ups no longer applied. Jed was married and more than that, Kate was free to choose who she wanted, and right now she wanted him.

Kate’s kisses peppered his skin and every touch of her lips fanned a flame straight to his groin. If she didn’t notice how interested he was in the view before, there was no mistaking or missing the straining against the seam of his dress pants.

She pressed her cool small hand against his thick arousal and touched her forehead against his. “Yes or no?”

His mouth was suddenly dry and he didn’t even have the ability to think with the determined and intentional way she was stroking him from root to tip.

He scooted back along the bench seat and tugged her under him. They were bathed in light but at least he could offer her a modicum of cover from prying eyes with his body. He hooked her leg over his hip and captured her mouth in a searing kiss. He was the kind of guy that believed in soul mates and fate. He read Shakespeare and Browning for fun. He couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t just looking for an excuse to replace the memory of her ex or only using a willing warm body to make her feel desirable. What he did know for sure though was that he was going to do his level best to make this a memory she wouldn’t soon forget.

Sinking into her was an act that would forever be imprinted into his body and mind. She was snug, welcoming and clutched at him in a way that threatened an embarrassingly quick end. He struggled to control his breathing and calm his wild nerves. Pinching his thigh hard brought him enough pause that he didn’t lose it. He could feel every shuddering breath she took and the way her pulse thundered under her skin at the tender junction between her shoulder and her neck where he rested his lips. He felt her stifled cry every time he thrust against her sweet spot and he revelled in that muted sound each time he heard it.

  
When her eyes met his and he saw the glistening sheen in the whites of her eyes, he felt his heart skip a beat. Those blue-grey eyes speared him and he felt his world shift. Nerve endings under his skin set off like wildfire and he came apart as she rippled and quaked around him.

He didn’t care that he almost crushed her with his bulk, or that he was pressing his face against her throat to hide the moisture leaking from his eyes. It’s just a reflex he told himself. Spring was in the air and while he’d never been particularly allergic to pollen, there had been a high allergen warning earlier in the week.  
Warm slender fingers carded through his hair and he felt her lips against his temple.

“I need to breathe,” she said with a smile in her voice. “And we should sort ourselves out before anyone else decides to call it a night and happens to get a free show.”

Just like that, their moment was over. He lifted himself off her and in slow blink her dress was righted. With a self conscious smile, she paused with her hand on the door handle and nodded to him briefly.

“Goodnight, Cary,” she said softly.

He had the presence of mind to tuck himself in before she climbed out of the car and he sat there in a partial state of shock, watching her walk way and re-enter the gym.

  
It wasn’t until Jed and his Ford model date turned up outside the door that he learned the car they’d been in hadn’t even been hers. In his daze, he had been subconsciously waiting for her to come back. By the time he realized his mistake in waiting, he discovered she’d already left.

The biggest slug to his ego came when he remembered he hadn’t even gotten her number.

Standing under the glittering chandelier and listening to the the jazz band play, he felt worse than when he’d turned up alone to this 10 year reunion event. At least before he’d made a passable impressed by turning up with a work colleague. Seems she had since found a more companionable person to engage with by the kitchen.

“Hey Cary, have you seen Kate? I wanted to introduce her to my wife, Isabelle, but I think I might have missed her.”

Cary pulled a face. As usual, Phil was being oblivious to everyone else’s issues but his own. “Sorry, can’t help you there.”

“Bummer, I think they really would have hit it off.”

Considering Isabelle was married with four kids and had lived on a cattle farm in Idaho before meeting Phil at a political rally when Phil had tried his hand at running for President eight years ago, he doubted it.

As he absently tossed back another drink, he lamented over the fact that Kate must not have felt their moment as memorable as he did. Or worse that she was still in deeply love with her dead husband and he was just a fling. A moment of weakness.

Well at least it didn’t seem like he’d caused any waves on the job front. Normally he was a stickler for the rules, he enjoyed his job. He found his calling late in life, bouncing from job to job before finally getting serious and going to college. He studied arts and languages and got a teaching diploma.

If campus security or worse, Principal Kellard had noticed them in the parking lot, he might have gotten himself in hot water. At the time he hadn’t given it more than a fleeting thought. He saw Kate naked and his brain flashed a neon sign saying, ‘Worth it.’

A shame that she hadn’t felt the same. As he thought of her wide toothy smile, and the sparkling of her eyes, he felt that now familiar twinge in his chest again. It felt a lot like heartache. So this is what the sting of Cupid’s Arrow felt like.

He refused to feel regret. There was nothing about his brief time with her that fit any kind of negative adjective. If this was fate dealing him a cruel tease of love. Then call him a fool for love. He had to see her again. He wasn’t going to let her disappear from his life this time around. Being with her was like basking in sunshine and she challenged him, kept him on his toes with her sharp wit and verbal jousting. He had to find her, even if it was only to keep her friendship.

Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all. He was a risk taker, always had been. He’d find her.


End file.
